Don't Say That When I Have My Mouth Full

This joke won't make any sense unless you grew up somewhere between 1976 and 1984.

Getting Kouryou-chan to eat is always something of a struggle. Friday evening we were around the dinner table, and the meal was a delicious saute'd chicken and onions with cous-cous and quick-steamed broccoli. Kouryou-chan was being especially persnickety about the chicken and Omaha started to tell her, "You have to eat the chicken. You have to have protein. You've got to eat some of the meat." Omaha got up to go back into the kitchen for something and as she did so she muttered, "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?"

I had a mouthful of food right then, and was so sideswiped by her comment I damn near choked to death.

Monthly garden party, with bad burger

Omaha and I had our monthly work party at Kouryou-chan's school. This session was slightly more depressing than usual because for the first two hours we were the only people who showed. We're getting a little tired of being the people to check the roofs, clear the gutters, weed the receiving area and and turn the compost bin for an entire schoolful of kids.

All in all, it was an okay day job. I had a bit of a scare as I slipped off the ladder coming down and fell. Fortunately, I was only about six feet up and the goround was dirt with a thick layer of pine needles to absorb the impact. Mostly bruised my pride, really, but it reminded me to be more a heck of a lot more careful going up and down that thing.

We had lunch at Arby's and I decided to have one of their "Roastburgers." Consider the project an epic failure. It's basically one of their roast beast sandwiches (which I happen to like when all I want is a big ol' hunk o' protein) decorated with the trappings of a fast food burger: lettuce, tomato, pickles, mustard & mayo sauce (without even a hint of Arby's in-house flavors, cheap steak sauce and horseradish-scented mayonnaise) on a sesame seed bun. The combination is just bland, but it does demonstrate how outlets like McDonald's work so hard to hide the poor quality of their meat. Arby's meat is actually pretty good; they ought not to try to emulate the other guys. I think I'll go back to their more fare.

In one of the bushes the kids had planted a bush with a label: "Spurge." I just liked saying that word, I don't know why. "Spurge!" The way someone says "Sparta!"

We finished up pretty quickly. The kids even helped, briefly, with the project of watering the front plants. I even managed to score some lovely dried firewood to take home.

A good Oloteas

Had a lovely night last night at Oloteas. It wasn't the usual full rit affair. Instead, February's being the least-attended service of the year, they had a bunch of smaller rituals and workshops for people to enjoy.

Yamaraashi-chan and I decided to go to the workshop called "Singing down the Goddess." I have a pretty complicated relationship with religion: I don't believe much in the transcendence of the whole project, but I recognize both the personal validity of some of the individual practices such as meditation and the immense value of communal activities like chorus. So I sat with the others and tried to remember how to hold a note with something other than tongs, and had a good time. Yamaraashi-chan got bored and wandered away, after which we had a long conversation about how she needed to learn the "boring parts" and study other genres if she ever wanted to be a great musician. I told her that I read stuff way outside my field to see how super-lit types like Delilo and Boyle and Updike, because I want to see how these guys do it too. I might not like their stuff (I really don't like Delilo; I think he tries way too hard, but I can see the artistry put into every paragraph), but I read it to study it.

We enjoyed greatly the Discordian Ritual of Mystery and Jelly Doughnuts. I informed Yamaraashi-chan that I had been a Discordian my whole life— well, at least since 13— and mentioned that I did own a copy of the Principia Discordia. But since the ritual was more like stand-up comedy, complete with silly names for the ritualists, the pelting of one another and the audience with tribbles, and the chating of "Donughts and Juice!" (as well as the response "Juice and doughnuts"), Yamaraashi-chan asked me if I took this seriously. "As seriously as I have to," I intoned seriously. "But it's like a joke, isn't it?"

"Well," I said. "There are some Discordians who will tell you yes, and there are some who'll say no. And then they'll all get into an argument, and somewhere in the middle they'll switch sides so the no-sayers are the yes-sayers, and vice versa."

"That's crazy!"

"No, what's crazy is believing you can control the future by holding to either the idea that you can make everything orderly, or that everything will be disorderly without you. Discordianism is an answer to that, by refusing to take a stand on anything. Except taking a stand. Or maybe we refuse that too." I gave her my best Doctor Who smile. "You'll just have figure out how to encompass everything."

She gave me her frown-pout.

Being kids, they wanted to swim all the time. The pool is warm, and big, and so I ended up spending at least two hours in there. That's not so bad, there were other people to talk to and even some to flirt with— not that I'm good at that, or doing so with intention these days. I even ended up giving one young woman advice on how to write programs in Python, which was especially odd. The pagan potluck wasn't as scary as those at a poly potluck: more meat, more bread, more "Oh, just eat it" kinds of stuff. Nobody looks at you like you're a murderer if you bring brie.

We left around ten. My eyes hurt from the chlorine, but I had a lot of fun, the girls were more or less fulfilled, and we were all exhausted. I let them have five final minutes in the hot tub, then sent them to the showers. We packed into the car and headed off.